David Wu’s tiger suit was the tip-off that 2011 was going to be a strange one.

The year opened with a
sitting congressman posing in a child’s orange-and-black striped
costume. It ended with angry protestors and their vinegar-soaked
bandanas, gas masks and hand-lettered signs of dissent facing down a
black wall of riot police.

As we looked back over the year, a theme emerged: The people making big news all seemed to want to dress up to do it.

It
wasn’t just Wu and Occupiers in our parks. Portland Timbers fans
painted their faces and draped themselves in green scarves. A band that
walked out of a Dickens novel and claims to travel by dirigible scored
Portland’s first No. 1 album in a long time. Stumptown’s baristas kept
muttering “nothing’s changed” as their iconic local coffee company got
swallowed by a buyout firm.

Given
this parade of, shall we say, “interesting” wardrobes, we decided to
organize our year-in-review issue around the strange outfits and
eccentric attire that might populate a party celebrating 2011.

Here’s
what the party might look like. As you walk in, Rebecca Black’s
“Friday” rattles the speakers. There’s someone dressed as a pile of food
waste drinking a flute of Champagne, talking to a 1-percenter who looks
like he just popped off a Chance card in Monopoly. Is that the girl
from Sleater-Kinney in the corner?

All in good fun, yes, but the costumes we saw in the news drew attention to the underlying anger and anxiety that marked 2011.

Oregon’s jobless rate remains one of the worst in the nation. But our attention to the economy deepened to consider
issues of basic fairness. Income inequality—a growing problem for
decades—has become front-page news and the commerce of debate about our
future. The Occupy movement—disorganized and diffuse, but posing a
challenge to Portland’s comfy posture—has made it happen in a way we
couldn’t have predicted last year.

Frustration toward
government has intensified, as had the city’s search for leadership.
Mayor Sam Adams—who foresaw little hope of re-election next
year—surprised most people by quitting his campaign before it started.
City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who many believe has really been
running City Hall, is also leaving office.

Meanwhile, Portland
Police Chief Mike Reese, whose bureau is under federal investigation for
civil-rights issues, had a fling with the idea of running for mayor—but
sat back down at his desk after he couldn’t get his story straight.

It all makes for an
odd crosscurrent, a city in search of leadership and economic hope, at a
time Portland continues to ascend as a culture factory. The city, it
seems, has never been cooler.

We’re
the stars of our own TV series, a show created by a local rock grrrl
that lovingly mocks our unique foibles while holding us out as the
ultimate example of all that’s hip. New Yorkers line up to drink the
coffee we’ve been sipping for years. People fly to town for a box of our
bacon-topped doughnuts.

What happened in 2011: The
people rose up, then settled in. For 39 days, the anti-Wall Street
protest turned Chapman and Lownsdale squares into a tent city, home to
hand-twinkling activists, warring street kids and one shivering WW
reporter (“Notes from the Occupation,” Oct. 26). When Mayor Sam Adams
set a Nov. 12 midnight eviction deadline, at least 4,000 people flooded
downtown streets. The crowds went home at dawn, the cops strolled in
and—with some tough tactics on the holdouts—cleared the parks (“Chaos to
Checkmate” and “The Fall of the 420 Hotel,” Nov. 16).

Update: For several weeks
after the eviction, Occupy Portland continued its marches through the
streets, debuting a Bat Signal projector and provoking police to deploy
pepper spray.

The most practical
effect of these protests was to derail Police Chief Mike Reese’s
political ambitions. His nascent mayoral campaign died somewhere between
the moment a cop pepper-sprayed a bank protester in the mouth, and when
the chief opened his mouth to falsely claim the protests had kept
police from responding to a rape victim.

In December, Occupy
Portland held events—which felt as much like camp reunions as
protests—at the Port of Portland and Shemanski Fountain on the South
Park Blocks, each blocking roads until wee hours, then dissipating. One
protester was arrested Dec. 16 at the world’s smallest park,
452-square-inch Mill Ends Park.

Occupy is still
conducting its meticulously bureaucratic general assemblies twice a week
in Director Park. It’s also become an established interest lobbying
City Hall, testifying on issues like police oversight and homelessness.
“They’re still here,” says Jim Blackwood, a staffer for Commissioner
Nick Fish. “But they seem to be focusing on issues differently.”

They’re
also looking to collect their stuff. A former Occupier sent a tweet
from Florida on Dec. 21: “Anyone who knows the whereabouts of the white
Medics tent of the former Beta Camp plz call Laura.” AARON MESH.

What happened in 2011: Duane
Sorenson, founder of Portland’s iconic coffee roaster Stumptown, sold a
majority share in the company to a San Francisco investment firm.
Sorenson and Stumptown repeatedly denied the deal, only backing away and
reverting to a “no comment” after a number of coffee industry
executives confirmed to WW that TSG Consumer Partners told them it owned a 90 percent stake in the company (“The Selling of Stumptown,” June 8).

Update: Stumptown has, on
its face, so far bucked predictions that it would become more
“corporate.” The coffee hasn’t changed, nor have the employees, and
they’re still blaring heavy metal. Selling branded mugs and travel cups
at the counter are the only whiffs of Starbucks-ization.

But it’s hard to know what’s really going on at Stumptown given all the corporate secrecy.

In a rare interview with Entrepreneur
magazine in June, Sorenson said critics were just “haters” and that the
sale would allow the company to “move into markets like Chicago, Los
Angeles, San Francisco and Europe.” He told the magazine he continues to
“run and operate” the business.

More recently,
Sorenson opened a 56-seat restaurant called the Woodsman Tavern, with an
adjoining specialty food market, next to the Stumptown on Southeast
Division Street.

TSG, which typically
buys brands, ups their value and sells them off for big profits, raised
$1.3 billion for a new fund in October. Its typical MO is to flip brands
after five to seven years, so we don’t expect to see anything dramatic
happen soon. RUTH BROWN.

What happened in 2011: East
Portland, a fast-growing and underserved part of Portland that many
Portlanders don’t even know falls within the city limits—the 50 square
miles between Interstate 205 and Gresham—got new attention from local
officials and City Hall candidates. WW shed light on East Portland’s problems and challenges in an Oct. 12 cover story, “The Other Portland.”

Update: The three top
mayoral candidates—Charlie Hales, Eileen Brady and Jefferson
Smith—continue to stump for East Portland’s issues. The City Council
focused on East Portlanders in its annual Spirit of Portland Awards,
honoring, among others, Centennial Community Association president Tom
Lewis, who was featured in WW’s story.

And the Rosewood
Initiative, a shoestring volunteer group that had opened a new community
space in a vacant storefront on rough-and-tumble Northeast 162nd
Avenue, received a $10,000 grant this month from the Portland
Development Commission. The grant will allow the Rosewood Cafe to stay
open at least through January.

Much of the news from
East Portland was bad, including the Nov. 7 shooting death of
13-year-old Julio Cesar Marquez. He died in an alley off Northeast 107th
Avenue near Halsey Street from what police called multiple gunshot
wounds and blunt-force trauma.

The boy’s brutal
death brought renewed attention to the crime and gang problems east of
I-205—and exposed tensions just beneath the surface. East PDX News, a
website covering the area, headlined its story “Teen gangster murdered
in Gateway.”

On Dec. 2, local AM
radio talker Lars Larson harangued Mayor Sam Adams about a proposal to
lower the flags in honor of youth shooting victims. Larson demanded to
know why the city was honoring a dead gangbanger. Adams grew
increasingly livid, then hung up on Larson. COREY PEIN.

THE TAX CODE BENEFITS THE RICH—WHO KNEW?

The Costume: Gentlemen
should wear a Huntsman bespoke suit, Brooks Brothers shirt, Hermes tie
and Edward Green shoes. Women should simply choose whatever Vogue is
currently featuring, accessorizing with a Pucci scarf and jewelry from
Tiffany.

What happened in 2011: In April, when the words “Occupy Wall Street” had yet to be uttered, WW
published “9 Things the Rich Don’t Want You to Know About Taxes.” The
story, reported by Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston,
was picked up by 39 other weeklies around the country and became WW’s most read story of the year.

Update: The increasing
number of Americans who are seething at the growing gulf between the
rich and the rest of us has informed both the Tea Party and the Occupy
movement. And with good reason—the richest 1 percent of Americans now
control 35 percent of the wealth in this country. It is this
development—along with a recession that is soon to enter year five, and a
Congress that reaffirmed “In God We Trust” as the official national
motto but can’t bring itself to balance the budget—that has some
wondering if America is headed for an Arab Spring of it own.

How does Johnston feel about the reaction to his story? He tells WW
by email: “After many years of writing about these issues, and often
feeling I was holding up a hand of truth against a tsunami of
misinformation, it was wonderful to discover a huge new audience eager
to learn how the few manipulate our tax system at the expense of the
many. [It’s] part of the awakening of democratic values that now fuels
the Occupy movement and offers the first chance in more than three
decades that we will get a government responsive to the people and not
just the oligarchs.” MARK ZUSMAN.

THE KING IS NO. 1

Costume: Gentlemen should don a musty top hat, silk cravat and freshly waxed mustache. Ladies should wear a woolen dress with petticoat.

What happened in 2011: The King Is Dead,
the sixth album from Portland indie-folk outfit the Decemberists, (see "10 Different Takes on the New Decemberists Album's 10 Songs," Jan. 3) took
the top spot on the Billboard chart in February by selling 94,000 copies
in its first week. The Decemberists became the first Oregon-based group
to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in recent memory—unless you count
Washington-bred Modest Mouse.

Update: The Decemberists decided to follow up their huge hit with a hiatus.

Multi-instrumentalist
Chris Funk isn’t fond of that description. “There has been quite a bit
of press on a ‘hiatus,’ which kind of makes me cringe,” he says.

The band is, he says,
“taking a break from recording and touring.” Not a total break—the
Decemberists recently recorded a track for The Chieftains’ 50th
anniversary album—but they’re all pursuing other projects.

“I
think we played less shows on this record than we ever have on an
album,” Funk says. “Don’t ask me why we aren’t seizing our moment. I
guess we are complex.”

In the meantime, singer Colin Meloy is promoting his book, Wildwood,
and writing a new one. Jenny Conlee continues to recover from cancer
and is opening a teaching studio. She’s also part of bluegrass outfit
Black Prairie with bassist Nate Query and Funk. Black Prairie is scoring
a play for the Oregon Children’s Theater called “The Storm in the
Barn,” which will be out in April, around the time the band releases a
record. Drummer John Moen is working on a record for his band, Perhapst.

“I
think we all are in a period of trying to just live in Portland, have
community and focus on other music and family, so when we come back to
the band it will feel fresh again,” Funk says. “We had been hitting
it—promoting and touring, then coming home for two, three months off,
then start another record, then the entire process starts again—for over
10 years.” MARTIN CIZMAR.

What happened in 2011: The
U.S. Justice Department’s top civil rights enforcer, Assistant Attorney
General Thomas E. Perez, came to town in July to announce a federal
investigation of the Portland Police Bureau. Perez said the
investigation would seek to determine whether the Portland police had
engaged in a “pattern or practice” of civil rights violations,
especially in cases involving the mentally ill. Flanked by Mayor Sam
Adams, Police Chief Mike Reese and interim U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton,
Perez promised a “collaborative” investigation, and welcomed tips from
the public. (Send tips to community.portland@usdoj.gov or call
877-218-5228.)

Update: Many activists say the Justice Department’s investigation has barely been a presence in the city, as far as they can tell.

Jo Ann Hardesty (née
Bowman) of the Albina Ministerial Alliance says she’s concerned federal
investigators haven’t spoken to enough people. “They were only here for a
few days in August, and they interviewed a few people in 20-minute time
slots,” Hardesty says. “One of our concerns was that they only talked
to people the Police Bureau told them to talk to.”

Chris O’Connor, a
public defender who works with the Mental Health Association of
Portland, says the feds’ communication with the group ended when it made
it clear the group would attend only public, not private, meetings.
Both groups sent letters to the Justice Department following Perez’s
visit; he says neither group got a reply.

“The hope was these
outsiders would come in without all the political baggage, but so far,
it hasn’t happen,” O’Connor says. “For all we know, they’re sitting
there typing away furiously, coming up with this amazing report. Or
they’re just doing nothing.” A Justice Department civil rights division
spokesperson did not return WW’s messages. COREY PEIN.

DAVID WU QUITS

Costume: A too-small tiger suit with hoodie, and mittens for paws.

What happened in 2011: U.S.
Rep. David Wu (D-Portland) should have quit while he was ahead. The
only Taiwanese-born person ever to serve in Congress, the Stanford-,
Harvard- and Yale-educated lawyer put in his time without distinction
from 1999 through his resignation in early August. In February, WW reported that Wu, during the 2010 general election, evaded security at
PDX, sought pain medication from a campaign supporter and required two
“interventions” from staff before disappearing from the campaign trail.Wu’s increasingly erratic behavior led to nonstop media scrutiny during the first half of 2011, and an Oregonian story in July about Wu’s alleged unwanted sexual encounter with a supporter’s daughter forced him to quit.

Update: Wu is living in
Washington, D.C., with his two children and looking for work, says his
Portland-based divorce lawyer, Jody Stahancyk. Given his 12-year
Congressional career and his unique position in the Taiwanese-American
political community, Wu should be able to land a lobbying gig. He’s got
$325,000 left in his campaign account, and while he cannot spend that
money on himself, strategic contributions could ease his re-entry into
the working world.

He’s beginning to get
back out in public. Dressed in a dark suit and red tie, Wu rose from
the audience at a Dec. 12 televised panel discussion at the Atlantic
Council, a Washington think tank, and asked why Chinese Internet censors
are allowing online discussion of Taiwanese politics when they blocked
coverage of the “Arab Spring.”

He is, however, playing no role in the Jan. 31 special election to fill his seat. NIGEL JAQUISS.

ONE MAN’S TRASH...

Costume: Hop in a big green cart and cover yourself in banana peels, old lettuce and rancid lunch meats.

What happened in 2011: By
2015, Portland wants to recycle or compost 75 percent of its trash. To
that end, the city encouraged residents to start putting food scraps,
tea bags and coffee filters in green compost bins. The bins are now
collected every week, while the city only picks up the remaining 25
percent of regular garbage every other week. Despite an elaborate PR
campaign leading up to the Oct. 31 switch, this move angered and
confused Portlanders who had nothing better to bitch about.

Update: The city’s Bureau
of Planning and Sustainability hasn’t yet analyzed the percentage
increase in compost loads—yes, it’s going to hire people to dig through
piles of garbage to see how many people are tossing food in the trash
and trash in the food—but Solid Waste and Recycling Manager Bruce Walker
says the angry calls and questions have gone back down to normal in the
two months since the program began.

“It’s
close to regular levels of about 400 calls a week, and it was up to
about 1,400 above that,” Walker says. “We certainly [still] get calls
from people who are not happy about garbage being picked up every other
week.”

So how are
Portlanders doing with their compost? Feedback from facilities like
Nature’s Needs has been positive. “The residential material is really
clean,” Walker says. “Well, maybe that’s not how most people would
describe food scraps, but people are doing a really good job.”

The next step is
expanding the city’s commercial composting program, which works with
about 700 small businesses, though Walker says the city is making up its
strategy as it goes along.

“There
has been no federal leadership on this,” he says. “But in Portland,
we’re not going to wait around for the federal government, or we
probably wouldn’t even have traditional curbside recyclables.” CASEY
JARMAN.

What happened in 2011: The
unofficial supporters’ group of the Portland Timbers soccer team (never
call the Army a “fan club”) demonstrated its growing clout as a force in
Oregon sports. It got a financial stake as well, thanks to a special
ticket sales deal the Army cut with team owner Merritt Paulson. WW looked at the Army’s evolution in its cover story, “Gang Green,” which ran. Aug. 31.

Update: The Army broke onto
the national stage this year as soccer fans around the world tuned in
to televised Timbers games as much to soak up the atmosphere as watch an
expansion team struggle against far better teams. The Army’s
opening-night rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner”—a cappella,
3,000-plus voices strong—got 123,000 YouTube hits. (Major League Soccer
has nominated the national-anthem performance as one of its moments of
the year.)

The Army’s sold-out
sections at the north end of Jeld-Wen Field guaranteed a sonically
dominating experience for the rest of the fans (there’s no drowning out
the Army, whether you like it or not). The Army’s Operation Pitch
Invasion has donated tens of thousands of dollars to build fields and
renovate playgrounds in the Portland area.

Meanwhile, the
Timbers won over Portland in their inaugural MLS season with inspired
moments (a 3-0 wipeout of the eventual league-champion Los Angeles
Galaxy), and despite habitual mediocrity (a leaky defense, erratic
strikers, and winning only two road games).BRENT WALTH.

THE COLUMBIA RIVER CROSSING

The Costume: The emperor’s new clothes: Go naked and see if anyone has the courage to point out your flaws.

What happened in 2011: WW
revealed serious problems with the proposed $3.6 billion highway
project linking Portland and Vancouver. (See “A Bridge Too False,” June
1). The project won’t fix many problems it claims it will address, and
the plan for paying for it is filled with bogus numbers.

Update: The CRC, as this
project is known, won all of its local approvals late this year, after
spending more than $130 million without building a single foot of the
project (and continuing to burn through cash provided by the states of
Oregon and Washington). On Dec. 7, the Federal Highway Administration
issued a “record of decision” for the project, which means proponents
have satisfied federal planning requirements.

There’s
still no money for the project, however, either at the federal or state
levels. The project’s backers couldn’t even muster enough votes in the
2011 Legislature to pass a toothless feel-good measure exhorting
Congress to bankroll the proposed project. Oregon lawmakers didn’t
consider raising the $450 million in new gas taxes intended for the
project. In Olympia, Wash., lawmakers didn’t authorize tolling for the
project or approve their state’s $450 million contribution.

Meanwhile, experts
hired by Oregon Treasurer Ted Wheeler found the Oregon and Washington
transportation departments have overestimated traffic projections (as WW had earlier reported). That means the revenue available from tolling was off $500 to $600 million. NIGEL JAQUISS.

BIRDS EVERYWHERE!

Costume: Bedeck clothes with fabric birds then stare at yourself in a mirror until you are sick of your own face.

What happened in 2011: Carrie Brownstein happened. In January, the former Sleater-Kinney axewoman premiered Portlandia, her sketch-comedy mockery of the city “where young people go to retire” on the Independent Film Channel. Lines to watch Portlandia
at the Mission Theater and Pub stretched around the block. National
Nielsen ratings showed 725,000 people saw the premiere, stellar numbers
by IFC standards, and the show was renewed. Meanwhile, local business
guilds devoted entire afternoons to studying bullshit concepts like “the
Portlandia effect.”

Update: Other than the
10-episode second season and the live stage show (launched in Portland
on Tuesday)? Well, there’s reason to believe Portlandia, like everything it skewers, is about to become a sensation across the country the year after it was a sensation in Portland.

The New Yorkersent Margaret Talbot to profile Brownstein and co-creator Fred Armisen,
who is the subject of a three-page interview in January’s Esquire. Portlandia: The Tour
hits Los Angeles and Chicago in January, culminating in a Brooklyn show
(say hello to Adrianne Jeffries!) on Jan. 20. That’s the same day
Brownstein, costar Armisen and YACHT’s Claire Evans will host a panel at
WebVisions’ “Oregon Day”—an online-business recruiting event hosted in
New York City by the cities of Gresham, Hillsboro and Beaverton.

As for the show itself, Brownstein tells WW
the second season will consider “living in a place that caters to one’s
sense of entitlement and uniqueness. It’s the inverse of the norm,
wherein special needs are no longer fringe needs; not only are they
addressed, they are also celebrated.” So the second episode features an
“Allergy Pride Parade.”

Season
2’s first episode premieres Jan. 6, so we guess it’s OK to tell you one
secret—but please heed our MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT—Bryce Shivers and Lisa
Eversman, the enthusiastic artisans who coined the phrase “put a bird
on it,” have discovered pickling. AARON MESH.

"In the low usage areas, we found that our vehicles sit idle four times longer, ultimately affecting overall vehicle availability for the Portland membership base, as well as parking for the Portland community."

News
East Portland can't catch a break.Just this week KGW had a story called, "Diverse, non-cool East Por... More